Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Tomorrow really is a new day.

Tomorrow I end my long academic career at the University of CA! It will be a momentous day - Graduation Day, as I have thought of it for these many months since I made the decision to DO IT - to go on to the next adventure.

Actually, it feels like my life has been pacing itself in a predictable gestation period - I'm in my second trimester. The first was being a girl, a young bride, a mother.  Then I entered the second phase, the "I want a career" phase. That phase ended my marriage. It was a killer, that frame of time . So many lessons to learn that I should have already mastered, one would think, at that point of life. When I was thirty-something.

Going out on my own, trying to have it all, do it all, was harrowing at times. But I managed, as we all do, by just staying the course, even if  I wished I could go back - retrace my steps, and step back into the life I left behind. But - I had my career, and adventures and managed to keep the things that matter most. I feel so blessed - family, friends, a decent relationship with the Ex, a second marriage even. And still married this time, by gosh.

So, into the third trimester I go, a little heavier, thinking about botox and skin peels and hell, a whole face-lift would be good at this point. Full of plans I wouldn't have thought possible when I was that young bride, pregnant then with number one child, now expecting to have time to nurture my loved ones, and myself. I don't know what the future holds, or what the ultimate human experience - my total story arc - will produce. I don't know what I will deliver by the end of my lying-in on this planet, but I do pray it will be worthy.

And I hope by then,  my "late trimester" labor pains will produce a really good novel!!! Maybe, by starting this whole "I want to be a writer" phase at this time of my life, I'll really have something to write about!!

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Writing, I am. And doing way too many other things, today. Found this terrific Dream Song from the Wintu tribe. May be a good quote with which to start a chapter.

"Where will you and I sleep?
At the down-turned jagged rim of the sky you and I will sleep."

Love it - and the book of Indian poems that I have had for a long time. I gave my mother a copy in August of 1986. I wrote her a poem. We hadn't seen each other for a long time--life can be that way.

****
To Momma,
   
    I can trail the wind.
    Earthly ties do not bind me
    From you.

    In the trail of the wind,
    Mountains sigh
    Arching against endless sky

    And the Solace
    Reminds me
    Of you.

    Then, wind's wild wings beating
    Carried heart's songs away
    Not gently.

                                                               Now, pray hear my true wind song
                                                               Across the distance for you
                                                               Spoken intently.
                                                             ****

I see my mother at the old wood stove making the best biscuits or tortillas that ever melted in a child's mouth. The spirit of that moment and so many more like it feed my soul and I hope flow out onto the pages of my book. It is simple to feel and let the memory call me back - to remember the smells, the smile, the browned by-the-sun hands that yet were soft as kittens, the touch of those hands that healed every childhood ill - it is so hard to capture it all with the right words!!

The great challenge!

And I'm on it!